Confessions

⁴³ There is another evil of the day that I would were “sufficient” unto it. For by eating and drinking we repair the daily decays of the body, until Thou destroyest both food and stomach, when You shall destroy my want with an amazing satiety, and shall clothe this corruptible with an eternal incorruption. But now is necessity sweet unto me, and against this sweetness do I fight, lest I be enthralled; and I carry on a daily war by fasting, oftentimes “bringing my body into subjection,” and my pains are expelled by pleasure. For hunger and thirst are in some sort pains; they consume and destroy like a fever, unless the medicine of nourishment relieve us. The which, since it is at hand through the comfort we receive of Your gifts, with which land and water and air serve our infirmity, our calamity is called pleasure.

44. This much have You taught me, that I should bring myself to take food as medicine. But during the time that I am passing from the uneasiness of want to the calmness of satiety, even in the very passage does that snare of concupiscence lie in wait for me. For the passage itself is pleasure, nor is there any other way of passing there, whither necessity compels us to pass. And whereas health is the reason of eating and drinking, there joins itself as an hand-maid a perilous delight, which mostly tries to precede it, in order that I may do for her sake what I say I do, or desire to do, for health's sake. Nor have both the same limit; for what is sufficient for health is too little for pleasure. And oftentimes it is doubtful whether it be the necessary care of the body which still asks nourishment, or whether a sensual snare of desire offers its ministry. In this uncertainty does my unhappy soul rejoice, and therein prepares an excuse as a defence, glad that it does not appear what may be Sufficient for the moderation of health, that so under the pretence of health it may conceal the business of pleasure. These temptations do I daily endeavour to resist, and I summon Your right hand to my help, and refer my excitements to You, because as yet I have no resolve in this matter.

45. I hear the voice of my God commanding, let not “your hearts be overcharged with surfeiting and drunkenness.” “Drunkenness,” it is far from me; You will have mercy, that it approach not near unto me. But “surfeiting” sometimes creeps upon Your servant; You will have mercy, that it may be far from me. For no man can be continent unless Thou give it. Many things which we pray for dost Thou give us; and what good soever we receive before we prayed for it, do we receive from You, and that we might afterwards know this did we receive it from You. Drunkard was I never, but I have known drunkards to be made sober men by You. Your doing, then, was it, that they who never were such might not be so, as from You it was that they who have been so heretofore might not remain so always; and from You, too was it, that both might know from whom it was. I heard another voice of Yours, “Go not after your lusts, but refrain yourself from your appetites.” And by Your favour have I heard this saying likewise, which I have much delighted in, “Neither if we eat, are we the better; neither if we eat not, are we the worse;” which is to say, that neither shall the one make me to abound, nor the other to be wretched. I heard also another voice, “For I have learned, in whatsoever state I am, therewith to be content, I know both how to be abased, and I know how to abound... I can do all things through Christ which strengthens me.” Lo! A soldier of the celestial camp— not dust as we are. But remember, O Lord, “that we are dust,” and that of dust You have created man; and he “was lost, and is found.” Nor could he do this of his own power, seeing that he whom I so loved, saying these things through the afflatus of Your inspiration, was of that same dust. “I can,” says he, “do all things through Him which strengthens me.” Strengthen me, that I may be able. Give what You command, and command what You will. He confesses to have received, and when he glories, he glories in the Lord. Another have I heard entreating that he might receive—“Take from me,” says he, “the greediness of the belly;” by which it appears, O my holy God, that You give when what You command to be done is done.

46. You have taught me, good Father, that “unto the pure all things are pure;” but “it is evil for that man who eats with offense;” “and that every creature of Yours is good, and nothing to be refused, if it be received with, thanksgiving;” and that “meat commends us not to God;” and that no man should “judge us in meat or in drink;” and that he that eats, let him not despise him that eats not; and let not him that eats not judge him that eats. These things have I learned, thanks and praise be unto You, O my God and Master, who dost knock at my ears and enlighten my heart; deliver me out of all temptation. It is not the uncleanness of meat that I fear, but the uncleanness of lusting. I know that permission was granted unto Noah to eat every kind of flesh that was good for food; that Elias was fed with flesh; that John, endued with a wonderful abstinence, was not polluted by the living creatures (that is, the locusts) which he fed on. I know, too, that Esau was deceived by a longing for lentiles, and that David took blame to himself for desiring water, and that our King was tempted not by flesh but bread. And the people in the wilderness, therefore, also deserved reproof, not because they desired flesh, but because, in their desire for food, they murmured against the Lord.

47. Placed, then, in the midst of these temptations, I strive daily against longing for food and drink. For it is not of such a nature as that I am able to resolve to cut it off once for all, and not touch it afterwards, as I was able to do with concubinage. The bridle of the throat, therefore, is to be held in the mean of slackness and tightness. And who, O Lord, is he who is not in some degree carried away beyond the bounds of necessity? Whoever he is, he is great; let him magnify Your name. But I am not such a one, “for I am a sinful man.” Yet do I also magnify Your name; and He who has “overcome the world” makes intercession to You for my sins, accounting me among the “feeble members” of His body, because Your eyes saw that of him which was imperfect; and in Your book all shall be written.